Scars Aren't Forever
by GillyflowerCalfuray
Summary: Everyone has their share of scars, but none so much as Garrus Vakarian. His body and soul are riddled with them. But Commander Eleanor Shepard thinks that they can heal each other. Can she win back the trust of the Turian she was so close to? Or will the Reaper threat tear them apart again? Covers ME2-ME3.


**Hey, all! Gilly here. I've been playing through the _Mass Effec _trilogy recently, and when I found out that you could romance Garrus in ME2, I've never squee'd louder. I just had to write this. It's my first ME fic, however, taking place over the events of ME2 and ME3. So, spoilers will be rampant if you haven't played. I will be including violence and smut (this _is _an M-rated game, after all). However, the smut will be coming later, and the smuttiness may be affected by FF's purge. So, please just hold out.**

**My Shepard is a Paragon (with her Renegade moments) Spacer/War Hero, and fights as a Sentinel. I may do some tweaking to weapon classes, just to fit with the story better.**

**Disclaimer: BIOWARE OWNS ALL.**

* * *

Commander Eleanor Shepard had never wanted to shoot someone so badly in her life.

And the sad part was that the object of her rage was one of the few people to have ever been there for her.

Garrus Vakarian.

His blue scope glinted smugly as he stared at her, mandibles twitching. "Shepard, I was only doing what I had to do. I had to take responsibility for that one." They were standing on opposite sides of the Main Battery, in front of the Normandy's two main guns.

"You had almost every single mercenary on Omega out for your blood! You are damn lucky I got there in time for you." She growled, trying to keep up her angry feelings. But she just couldn't, not with those ice blue eyes staring at her. "And, I mean, look at you. Look at your face. If I hadn't been around, those scars would be much worse."

"You've had your fair share of those, Shepard. And you look at your face—are those glowing orange?"

"They'll only be around until my body fully acclimates to all the cybernetics I've been filled with. And Dr. Chakwas says that she can do something to remove them." She rubbed her cheek. "Remember that big one I used to have here? I got it back on Elysium. This one Batarian got too close, and he tore my helmet off. I shot the guy, but he ended up taking a slice of my face with him."

"I do remember. You were pretty proud of that one. It showed that you're not invincible." His sniper rifle was still compacted on his back. He grabbed it and unfolded it, causing Shepard to instinctively reach for her pistol at her hip. It wasn't there, of course, because projectiles in such an enclosed space could be more than just deadly.

He didn't fire it. Instead, he laid his M-97 Viper out on a bench in the corner, and started disassembling and cleaning it. He really didn't have to, because the mass effect field generators repelled any grime that tried to accumulate. But Shepard couldn't bring herself to say anything.

"Garrus, I..."

"I like what you've done with the ship, Shepard. Why don't you go explore it?" The flanging in his voice rose in pitch, and his mandibles dejectedly flatted themselves against his face. "And see if you have anything dextro to eat. I'm starving."

Shepard bristled. The commanding officer of the ship does _not_ take orders from the crew!

She stood down. He was obviously in a lot of pain.

"I'm glad that you're back, Garrus. Two years without seeing your metallic mug were horrible." She opened the door and left.

"I'll be here...if you need me." He muttered to himself. She barely caught his words over the automatic beep of the door.

* * *

Shepard stormed to the elevator and went up to her cabin. The glow of her fish tank was strong—there was only one kind of fish in there. She pushed a button on the side out of habit, causing food to rain into the water.

She sat down at her desk, and turned on the display of her private terminal. As it booted up, she looked over to her right. A photo of her former squad mate...and somewhat-boyfriend stared back at her, his brown eyes soft and soulful.

Kaidan Alenko, one of the few people in the galaxy she felt like she could really trust.

She had no idea where he was, of course. No one did. He obviously had no idea that she was back in action. He would have found them by now. The galaxy is big, but news travels fast.

"EDI," she ordered, "scan all extranet channels for word about one Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko. He's Alliance."

_"Searching now."_ replied the smooth, disembodied voice of the Normandy's resident AI. _"Search complete. I found nothing dated after the destruction of the original Normandy, Commander."_

She sank down into her chair. "Thank you, EDI." she said quietly.

Eleanor sat for a while until her intercom buzzed. Joker's voice poured through. _"Shepard! Why didn't you tell me Garrus was on board?"_

"Sorry, Joker. I was a bit occupied with the fact that half his face had just gotten blown off." She swiveled her chair around.

_"Well, tell him to drop by my chair sometime. We need to catch up. But from what I've seen of him, and that was only a little, it seems like he's taken that stick out of his ass, only to start trying to beat people to death with it. Is he okay?"_

"I don't know, Joker. I don't know."

* * *

Back down with the guns, Garrus was silently cursing to himself. Why had he just forced Shepard out? He was happy to see her, he really was. But the pain of losing his squad and taking a missile to the face was just too much to bear right now. Especially because he knew that he had been ratted out. There should have been 12 body bags in that building on Omega. Instead, there were only 11, because that damnable coward was a traitor.

He kept disassembling and reassembling his favorite sniper rifle. Every piece was perfect, and they all went back the same way.

_Damn that worthless excuse for a Turian!_

He pulled the gun apart.

_That scum knew that the failure of the subordinate reflected badly on the superior._

He put the gun back together.

_The greedy bastard sold out Archangel for money. He didn't deserve his facial tattoos. Untrustworthy rat!_

He grabbed the gun and calibrated it to his eyepiece. The HUD displayed the distance to the next target, its temperature, and its protections. Since no other organisms were in the room, it registered the wall as a target.

Garrus imagined his former friend's face filling the crosshairs. His finger ghosted over the trigger, aching to pull it and paint the surroundings with blood.

He put the Viper down with a heavy thud. No good shooting down the_ Normandy_.

His stomach started growling, a sign that he needed to stop worrying. He always got hungry after getting worked up. Garrus walked out of the Battery, went down a short flight of steps, and came to a refrigerator.

"Didn't Kaidan used to stand here?" He muttered to himself as he poked around.

"Uh, excuse me, Sir. Are you looking for anything in particular?" Garrus turned around at the new voice. A middle-aged human male was watching him with a curious expression. "Mess Sergeant Rupert Gardner, at your service."

"Do you have any dextro-safe foods, Mess Sergeant?" said Garrus, taking a minute to get used to having a title again. "I'm famished."

"Well, let's see here now." Gardner stepped towards the fridge and rifled through its contents. "Well, we've got some standard-issue nutritive paste..." he pulled out a bowl of quivering gray jelly, "and that's about it. Got some dextro-water here too, if you like."

"I'll take it, thanks." He took the food, sat down, and spooned a bit of goop into his mouth. The taste was horrific, and the texture worse, but seeing that such a pro-human organization would stock their ships for aliens was unthinkable.

"I'll put it an order for some real dextro foods next time we make port, alright Sir?"

"Yes, that will do just fine. Thanks." Garrus kept eating the horrid paste, no longer paying attention to it. He had something to keep his mind on. He had to go talk to Shepard again; he had to apologize for snapping.

Before he did that, he went back to the Main Battery and worked himself out of his armor. There was a big chunk blasted out of the cowl, where that rocket had hit him. He sighed, gently running his talons over the damage. If he didn't have a raised area of his body, that rocket would have caught his face directly, and he'd most definitely be dead right now.

His under armor and clothing were fine, however. It seemed fitting that he present a gentler persona to the Commander.

Garrus pressed a button on the AI terminal on the wall. "Hey, AI."

_"Please call me EDI."_ a feminine voice responded, and a round blue hologram popped up. _"How may I be of assistance, Officer Vakarian?"_

"Where is the Commander?"

_"Commander Shepard is in her cabin. She does not seem to desire company at this moment."_

"Ah...alright."

_"Also, Mr. Moreau has requested your presence in the cockpit."_

"I'll be there shortly."

_"Logging you out, Officer Vakarian."_

* * *

As Garrus approached the flight deck, Joker slowly spun his chair around. "Hey, Garrus. Long time no see, eh? Welcome aboard the new _Normandy_."

"I see there have been some major upgrades." Garrus replied, observing.

"Yeah, man! The SR-1 was great to fly, but damn, Cerberus knows how to build a ship right."

"I heard that you're Cerberus now. Don't you remember what they were doing two years ago? Let me call up Admiral Kahoku, he'll tell you all about it. Oh, wait. I can't. He's dead, because Cerberus got him."

"Ah, don't give me that, Scars. At least Cerberus is actually doing something right now instead of sitting around like the Alliance." Joker toyed with the brim of his SR2 cap. "The Illusive Man is one hell of a man."

"Who?"

"He's the big man down at Cerberus HQ. He was the one who spent millions of credits on bringing Shepard back to us."

"I still don't like it." Garrus extended his mandibles in aggravation. "How can we be entirely sure that she really is the Commander? We all saw the casket. We all mourned for her."

"I would have doubted her too. But, do you want to know what one of the first things she asked me was? She asked me if I made it out of the first _Normandy_ okay. She practically had to drag me out of my chair. A fake Shepard wouldn't know that."

"Huh. And you remember that scar she used to have on her cheek?"

"Yeah, she got it on Elysium."

"...When an angry Batarian tore off her helmet and got a chunk of her face with it."

"...Holy _shit_, it really is Shepard!" Joker exclaimed. "Damn." He whistled low.

"Good to know."


End file.
